Get the clubs out of NSW now or else the A-League season could be doomed!

With the likelihood of an October 30 start to the upcoming A-League season looking decidedly shakier, Football Australia needs to act immediately to ensure that the top tier in Australia is not whacked from pillar to post for a second year running.

In spite of daily uncertainty, players and clubs all played their parts last season. Wellington squatted in New South Wales, teams frequently backed up on absurdly short turnarounds and matches were delayed, shifted and postponed with a regularity that called for the patience of Job.

Despite the nation seemingly having moved beyond the COVID nightmare in early 2021, a level of nervousness and fear even greater than what was experienced 12 months ago has now beset the east coast of Australia.

With an A-League season now just 60 odd days away, the chances of the competition featuring matches hosted by the five teams based in New South Wales appear slim at best. Moreover, an extended New South Wales lockdown that will probably end much closer to Christmas than all of us feel comfortable admitting, will most likely see the first half of the season played completely outside Australia’s most populated state.

Considering the financial impact made on the league by the nation’s first encounter with the pandemic, everything within FA’s power should be done to ensure that the season begins on time.

A slashed 2020-21 salary cap may take years from which to recover, fans will still be hesitant to attend games, as life with a permanent COVID backdrop becomes more and more a reality and the loyalty of the financially invested sponsors that keep the game alive at 12 A-League clubs will be once again tested; potentially even more dramatically than during the 2020-21 season.

The odds of NSW clubs being able to welcome fans in the early part of the season are looking slim (Photo by Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

So much has been invested in the league prior to what some feel will be a rebirth of it. Network Ten threw open the chequebook to earn the right to reshape the face of football by streaming it on their Paramount+ application.

Clubs that suffered crippling financial losses have doubled down in the hope of at least a small but meaningful bounce back this season and membership numbers suggest many fans have also committed to the cause, in the hope of the league returning to, at worst, its ‘treading water’ existence prior to COVID-19.

Should FA sit on its hands and act as indecisively as some state governments have during the rise of the highly infectious Delta variant, the upcoming A-League season could well be torpedoed before even beginning its maiden voyage.

As training ramps up for all A-League clubs, new signings arrive and managers begin to decide on roles and structure, FA needs to make the call that the worsening situation in New South Wales so critically threatens the competition that the clubs must leave.

While it may be far from ideal or convenient for those clubs forced to move, the A-League cannot commence or proceed in the current climate; border closures and travel restrictions make any such pipe dream impractical.

With the restrictions destined to linger for some time, Sydney FC, Western Sydney Wanderers, Macarthur FC, Newcastle Jets and Central Coast Mariners must be re-located immediately and other additional signings or arrivals sent directly to their new homes.

As a contingency, the governing body should also have the three Melbourne clubs on high alert, with Victory, City and Western United just a day or two of bad news away from requiring similar resettlement.

A plan similar to the one implemented by the AFL, where Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane host matches could work, if a proactive move is made to evacuate the New South Wales based teams, now rather than later.

At some point, it could become all too hard, impossible, disastrous and illegal to even contemplate such a mass exodus. Yet, delaying a call on what grows ever more likely on a day by day basis could be fatal.

Should things brighten more quickly than most anticipate, the clubs could simply return with some no doubt claiming that the decision to move them was something of an over-reaction.

Frankly, I am certain that that is a risk worth taking.

Re-locating now, would allow the process to be far less stressful than those faced by other professional teams around the country over the last 12 months. At times, late night flights have flown clubs to safety after its passengers were given just hours of notice prior to departure.

Where possible, players, staff, partners and their children could all quarantine to meet the requirements of the city in which they arrive. A comfortable bubble can be set up and the A-League could hopefully begin without the sporting mayhem that has ensued at different times around the country.

My fear is that further delay and growing COVID cases in Sydney will see just short of half the A-League competition unable to compete in the opening rounds, causing massive disruption and postponements, that may never be overcome unless the situation improves dramatically in brisk time.

It may not be the start to the A-League season we wanted, but I fear it may be what is required if we hope to have a season at all.